Going to Town!

Tuesday, July 17th

Leaving Stevens

Our pilot told us the flight to Fairbanks should be "nice." His idea of nice must include anything short of a zombie apocalypse. The flight was the bumpiest we’d ever experienced. Turbulence was tossing the plane around like it was dancing (at least that's what Alice told Arwen). Flying in winter is much nicer. The air is too cold to move! Or something like that. I’m not sure on the exact science.

This is a video of our take off. Our airport is a gravel strip and although take off was bumpy this was by far the smoothest part of the trip. You can also see the whole of our village from the air.

Our first stop (after Taco Bell, yum!) was a dentist appointment for Alice to take care of some issues she’d been having with her teeth. Turned out the issues were pretty big. She needed her wisdom teeth removed! I thought most people got that taken care of when they were in their late teens, but Alice likes to do things differently. 

The appointment was scheduled for the next day, so we headed to our hotel outside of town. On the drive there we spotted three moose! This was the first one.

Wednesday, July 18th

The price of wisdom

We weren't sure if we had just been lucky to spot three moose the previous day. We got our answer leaving the parking lot. A moose slowly crossed the entrance in front of us. Three more were spotted before we made it to town. Each one we saw made us comment, “Wow, that one is huge!” Note to reader: 90% of adult moose in Fairbanks in July…are huge.

Alice had two wisdom teeth on her right side removed (the left are coming out next month). The rest of the trip she spent with a swollen jaw and an upset stomach, unable to eat. The pain medicine she was on made her physically sick. We went back to the hotel (no moose this time!) and she "relaxed" (threw up a lot) while I took the kids around the resort.

First, we stopped at the natural hot springs. While you have to be over 18 to get in (the water gets over 100 degrees), they were able to put their hands in the water. They had lots of questions.

"What happens if a duck gets in the water?"

Then there's a duck in the water.

"What happens if fish get in the water?"

Then I suppose there's a fish in the water.

I'm not sure what their confusion was. We went to the playground to play, and they watched a lady feed some ducks. The ducks that hung around the resort were a highlight of the trip for them. Earlier that morning, three white ducks had followed us all the way from our room to the parking lot looking for handouts, which the kids thought was hilarious.

Thursday, July 19th

A busy day

While there was no moose at the entrance to the hotel, we saw seven moose in the span of 30 minutes on our morning drive to the fingerprint appointment. Alice, of course, was on the verge of throwing up the entire time. The federal courthouse where we had to go was pretty intimidating; empty your pockets and remove your shoes kind of place. Dead quiet, too, which is not cool when you’re bringing four kids along. We had threatened them with certain death (not really, but close) if they made any noise, and the three older ones were perfect. Arwen started to whine while we were waiting, which is dangerous because she has a good set of lungs on her. She settled down well enough, though, and we didn’t get kicked out.

The guy who did the fingerprints was really nice, even if we kept messing things up. You know, they ask you to sit down, fill out this paper and wait for them, but the paper says to turn it into the receptionist when you finish. So, I go to turn it in and they politely remind me to sit down and wait for them (duh). Then I missed the piece that says ALIEN ID NUMBER (or SSN). I got skipped while Alice went first. When it’s finally my turn, the guy asks me to take my earrings out. Yeah, I’d need pliers for that. He must have noticed the deer in the headlights look on my face, because he let me keep them in.

Thankfully, though, everyone was, in true Alaskan form, very polite and pleasant. We found out that they only come up to do fingerprints from Anchorage every 2-3 months. We had contemplated rescheduling the appointment to try and get it for August when we will have in-service, but thankfully we didn’t. We might have been waiting until October for the appointment!

Oh, and Alice only throw up once in the bathroom. YAY!

After the fingerprints, it was time to get Alice some new meds that didn’t make her vomit. Of course, the dentist had the day off. We were able to call his home and leave a message. We waited and were about to give up and head to the hotel for a nap when he called back and called in the prescription to Wal-Mart.

Wal Mart Pharmacy. I’ve had some experiences there. This time was no exception. Apparently, they don’t check their voice mail for call-ins unless someone insists that a prescription should be there. Insists three times. Oh, you’re not going away? I guess we’ll check our voice mail. Oh, sir, yeah, apparently the message was on the voice mail! Who would of known!

Alice, of course, was siting in the car with a swollen jaw deciding between pain and nausea. Yeah, one of those days.

By the time we got the medicine, we didn’t have time to drive back to the hotel before meeting up with our awesome Fairbanks friends B. and K. We took care of some other business; our home study got one of those annoying pink slips from the USCIS and our case worker drafted an addendum that I express mailed to Missouri. Hopefully that will take care of it.

Still, we had two hours to kill with the wife in pain and still nauseous and the kids bored. We grabbed a giant sub, crackers and juice and parked at a hotel, of all places, that had a lot of grass. The kids sat in the back of the rental Suburban and ate, then me and the kids ran around the grass in the on-again off-again rain. They had a blast and were soaked. Alice slept in the car. She spent most of our trip sleeping in the car.

Finally, it was time to head to our friend's house! We had a great time meeting our friend B.’s wife K. for the first time and eating homemade pizza and ice cream. I got to play a mindless fighting game on the PS3 and we watched a Monster’s Inc. in Blue Ray magic.

Blue Ray, by the way, is amazing. Don’t watch it unless you are planning on buying a player and new movies, because it makes DVDs seem outdated.

We left their house around 11pm and stopped at the grocery store for some snacks before heading back the hour and a half drive to the hotel. It took over two hours. Seeing moose in the bright light of the morning is pretty cool. Seeing the dark forms of three giant moose in the hazy twilight of Alaska’s summer midnight sun on a narrow, tree-lined road is not so cool. Especially when I was fighting fatigue. I drove 20 miles under the speed limit. Unlike probably any other state, every car we passed was also doing well under the speed limit. Hitting a moose with your car is not like hitting a deer in the lower 48. That would be like saying a garden snake is like a python.

We survived and finally had a day to relax and take the kids swimming in the pool (twice).  I got to swim in the natural hot spring pool. It was probably close to 100 degrees and extremely relaxing.

Friday, July 20th

We make good on a promise

This day had only one goal: swimming. We had promised the kids that we would take them swimming when we were in town. Macy and Arwen love swimming. Arwen was yelling at me in her half-gibberish, half-intelligent language for a while before I realized she was saying "I'll do it myself!" She didn't want me to hold her in the water. Later, in another fit of independence, she demanded being placed in the water without her floaties. I let her head go under water for less than half a second before pulling her up. She asked to have the floaties back on.

I will do it myself!

Macy went all over the pool with her floaties, and even was brave enough to try swimming some without floaties, which lasted until she swallowed too much of the water. Molly Clara was brave enough to get in the water, even if she freaked out a little bit, which is a huge leap forward. Usually she just runs around the pool refusing to get in and then throws a fit when we leave because she didn't get in. Gavin did excellent playing in the pool without his floaties.

Macy helping Molly to swim

We went swimming twice, hit the playground again, and hit the activity center up twice for ice cream treats and coffee. We also had a light dinner; Alice was able to eat a bite of clam chowder. Both of us got in the hot springs this day.

Saturday, July 21st

Guerilla shopping

You should know what guerilla shopping is by now. It's when you drop $700 in mostly-grocery shopping in a short amount of time because you know it will be three weeks before you're back and since we've already paid for the charter, we have to take full advantage. We filled two carts at Fred Meyer's (aka Kroger back east), checked out, and then I went back for a cart of fruits and vegetables. We also hit the farmer's market, the health food store, the chinese restaurant and Starbucks before running out of time and catching our 5pm charter back into Stevens. Thankfully, this time it was a smooth flight and Alice was able to keep her food down.

Back home! We hadn't left the village at all since mid-April, and haven't been out of Stevens for a non school-related trip since December. We head back in mid August for in service and the beginning of the school year!